Book Club tonight

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson:

Jill: How did you begin Gilead? What was its genesis?

Marilynne Robinson: It had a long genesis because it came as a result of my interest in theology, and also the fact of my having moved into the Middle West and becoming interested in the history of the Middle West. I read a lot of things that were written in the nineteenth century. Then, for whatever reason, a character came into my mind, or more specifically, a voice, and a lot of things that I'd been thinking about and reading about precipitated themselves as a novel. Who knows why? I was very pleased. I enjoyed writing the novel.

Ted Kooser and Wendell Berry

Melissa commented that Ted
Kooser's name came to mind
when she looked at Wendell Berry's
books in the library. Both are farmers.
Both are poets and essayists. Both care
deeply for place, the land, and family.
Both write about traditions being lost.
Ted Kooser was Poet Laureate in
2005, I am waiting for Berry to be bestowed
this honor!

From Watch with Me by Berry:

" It was a fine morning in August, dewy
and bright; the Katy's Branch valley was
still covered with a shining cloud of fog.
It was 1916 and a new kind of world was in
the making on the battlefields of France,
but you could not have told it, standing on
Cotman Ridge with that dazzling cloud lying
over Goforth in the valley, and the woods
and the ridgetops looking as clear and clean
as Resurrection Morning. Birds were singing."

Watch with Me

Wendell Berry. 1994.
Great title , isn't it.
It was a short novel that made me love the
main two characters: Ptolemy Proudfoot
and his wife Miss Minnie!
Berry has his"belonging to the land and
place" worldview through this book
( so that you want to become a farmer!)
as well as the strong marriage of the huge
"Tol" and the tiny "Miss Minnie."

"Tol was a big man. Clothing him,
said Miss Minnie, was like upholstering
a sofa!"

" To some, it seemed that Ptolemy Proudfoot
didn't 'laugh' like a Christian. He laughed
too loud and too long, and his merriment
seemed just a little too self-sufficient--
as if, had there been enough funny stories
and enough breath to laugh at them with,
he might not 'need' to go to Heaven."

You know when a book makes you laugh
and be part of the community, the author
has done well. And then , if you start to say
to your husband: Listen to this and start
reading it to him and he says READ more,
well, it's a very fine book. This one did that.

A funny line

In the last episode of Little Dorrit
on Masterpiece Theatre last night,
when Fanny Dorrit addresses her
"papa-in-law!" We broke into tears
of laughter. It's one of those wonderful
phrases that makes us still laugh!

To Be or Not to Be

Shakespeare's Birthday today!
We are doing Hamlet with a group
of homeschoolers ages 5 - 14.
There are lots of girls so they are
Kings and men! It is turning out to be
fun because the kids are. Keep it simple
is what I say as we made the script have
all the famous lines but not so long.
"There is something rotten in Denmark!"

Waterhouse's Ophelia

Delacroix



Rossetti



Millais

Giveaway

From The Bower ,
a beautiful blog. Be sure
to check out her shop:
Small Meadow Press
to see her notecards, etc..
Just so beautiful. Leslie
recently had a Rummage
Sale ~~~ just getting her box
in the mail is a delight!
She also has free downloads
of notepages, calendars, esp.
for homeschooling. Emma likes
the weekly pages for her assignments
she write out! Good training!



*newly re-designed set*

Pulitzer Prize winner

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Rank outsider Elizabeth Strout has won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with her novel, Olive Kitteridge. Strout beat a pack of literary heavyweights, including Philip Roth, John Updike, Toni Morrison, Annie Proulx, Jhumpa Lahiri, and the hot favorite Marilynne Robinson.

Set in a small town in Maine, Olive Kitteridge binds together 13 short stories. Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, hates change but rarely notices the changes taking place around her.

Strout was raised in small communities in New Hampshire and Maine. The Pulitzer judges said the book "packs a cumulative emotional wallop, bound together by polished prose and by Olive, the title character, blunt, flawed and fascinating."

ABE Books